Synchronous memory systems often include separately timed command and data signaling paths that establish correspondingly separate timing domains in recipient components. More specifically, high-speed data signals are typically sampled within the data interface of a memory component in response to non-periodic strobe signals, while lower-speed command/address signals are sampled within the memory component's command interface in response to transitions of a controller-forwarded clock signal. The clock signal generally serves as the primary timing reference for access and control operations with respect to the memory core so that strobe-sampled write data signals must cross from a strobe-established timing domain to the clock-controlled timing domain of the memory core interface.
To avoid domain-crossing error, skew between the clock and strobe timing domains has historically been limited by PLL-controlled phasing of the memory component's internal clock domain. In more modern designs, power-hungry PLLs (phase-locked loops) are omitted and skew is managed instead through trace-length matching of clock and strobe signaling lines. Unfortunately, trace length matching fails to account for internal signal paths, the lengths of which tend to be increasingly disparate as packaging technologies evolve. For example, in emerging edge-bonded memory components, an incoming clock signal may traverse the entire width of the chip to reach the site of the strobe-to-clock domain crossing. The resulting timing skew shrinks domain-crossing margins and thus, effectively limits top-end signaling rate.